People commonly use hand-held computing devices today for various personal and work-related purposes. Such hand-held devices are, for example, mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDA's), media players (e.g., MP3 players), and digital cameras. Hand-held devices are increasingly popular because their small size allows people to easily carry and use the devices in remote locations.
In order to achieve portability, many hand-held devices use user interfaces that present various display screens to the user for interaction that is predominantly visual. Users can interact with the user interfaces to manipulate a scroll wheel and/or a set of buttons to navigate display screens to thereby access functions of the hand-held devices. However, these user interfaces can be difficult to use at times for various reasons. One reason is that the display screens tend to be small in size and form factor and therefore difficult to see. Another reason is that a user may have poor reading vision or otherwise be visually impaired. Even if the display screens can be perceived, a user will have difficulty navigating the user interface in “eyes-busy” situations when a user cannot shift visual focus away from an important activity and towards the user interface. Such activities include, for example, driving an automobile, exercising, and crossing a street.
In view of the foregoing, there are continuing needs to provide improved user interfaces for hand-held devices.